When five things need to be submitted NOW...

...you end up with a slightly crazed week. Turns out when you have 4 papers and 1 job application trying to go out the door at once, you end up with a jammed door.  I did get the first application in - thanks to those who gave feedback to my earlier post (Especially DrDrA, I have to admit I checked out your advice and packets links quite a bit). We did in the end decide not to mention our status even though we were told by friends that the department I was applying to was "really into" the concept. We decided that no one was probably ever thrown out of the applicant pool for NOT being part of an academic couple, but we knew people who were tossed out because they were. After a day where I tried to work on everything at once (not a good approach for mole whacking or science, it turns out), I am back to a more sane approach of prioritizing manuscripts according to deadlines. Hopefully, by the end of next week I will be able to report all 4 papers being submitted!

In the meantime, I mainly wanted to take this opportunity to highlight DonorsChoose.org for my ecology friends. The ScienceBlogs folks are running a donation challenge. DonorsChoose.org is an organization that matches up teachers who need money for learning activities in their classrooms with people like us who may have some dollars to spare (at least for a little while!). Many of the activities the ScienceBloggers have highlighted are related to their disciplines and the ecology/environmental sciences are a little underrepresented. I'm all for more microscopes and all, but when I was a child what really sang to me was the more outdoorsy/organismal activities. If you're looking to invest in either creating future ecologists or at least a populace that understands why we're just as cool as our biomedical brethren, I've highlighted a few options:

If you want to donate through the ScienceBlog challenge, the following blogs chosen some ecology/organismal options (sorry DrugMonkey...):

Bioephemera (insects and trees)

Thus Spake Zuska (insect specimens)

Adventures in Ethics and Science (insect specimens, frog dissection)

Gene Thugz (soil/plant interactions)

Blog Around the Clock (coastal ecology, animal life cycles)

Zooillogix (forest ecology, animal life cycles)

The World's Fair (river ecology)

In addition, here are some alternatives that I think may not be represented in the ScienceBlogs challenge:

Trophic ecology (owl pellets!!!! How cool!)

Aquatic ecology (using cordless microscopes to go out and study aquatic organisms)

Field ecology (training students to design field studies)

Marine ecology (salt water tank for grade 6-8 marine biology class)

When Leadership Died

When exactly the concept of leadership died in our country, I do not know. But the events of the past 24 hours focused a pretty strong spotlight on Congress and the White House. Of all the muddled, confusing, and frightening things that came out of the bail out debacle, one message was shockingly clear: there are no leaders in Washington.

It seems clear to me that we are experiencing severe effects of a long-term vacuum in true leadership due to a lack of people capable of both vision for their country's future and service to their country above service to their party or themselves. I am not talking about Republican leaders or Democratic leaders. I am talking about American Leaders. People with the ability to see good ideas, regardless of whether it comes from a Republican or a Democrat, the foresight to implement them, and the courage to explain themselves clearly to the American people. Instead, we have politicians who would rather be re-elected than make courageous choices in the face of party or constituent disapproval.  We have politicians who rather smear blame than bring people together when difficult choices need to be made. In a time of crisis, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Thank you, President Lincoln, I think I now understand your point.

I will leave it to more informed people than myself to assess how we got into this mess. I am an Independent, and I think both sides have brought us to this point. And this point is not good. We are at a point where there is no trust - there is no respect - within government or between the government and many of its people. Our government is obviously paralyzed by distrust between Democrats and Republicans. But it is also paralyzed now by a distrust between politicians and the American people. We have reached a point where politicians of both parties speak in convoluted phrases and out right lies, as if we are not smart enough to realize we are being lied to. The spectacular greed which has brought our country to this economic state has caused mistrust between ordinary people and our financial institutions. And special interest money coursing through Congress has caused the American people to suspect that our government is no longer Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, for the people", but a government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, for the lobbyists. With all this distrust, yesterday's outcome was not a surprise. It was inevitable.

No good comes to any country at such an impasse. Especially one in the midst of two wars and potential economic collapse. While I privately hope that a real leader will emerge from this catastrophe, the truth of the matter is that right now we all need to be leaders for our country. Our politicians will not put our country above partisan politics until we demand exactly that. And by putting our country first, I do not mean 'my way or the highway'. I mean true intellectual discourse on the problems facing us, discussion of our differences on how to fix them, and real compromises across party lines. Until we ourselves say enough with partisanship and vote out of office those who insist on conducting themselves as if there can be only one political party, ... well, we get what we pay for. And I for one am not sure I like what we've bought.

The Job Packet - How much I hate thee

It's been a few years since I last constructed a job packet. In my memory, it was such a simple thing to put together. A short letter detailing why I was interested in/fit their job and selling the highlights of my credentials. A page on my teaching philosophy - which, for the jobs I was applying to, I figured would probably not even be read. A research statement, lovingly crafted with my current and future research plans. And, of course, my CV. My memory says I wrote these easily and quickly and birds sang in the background while the refreshing scent of flowers wafted over me.

After last night, I suspect that my memory was artificially constructed by my brain to protect me from a stressful experience....kinda like the hormone that supposedly wipes women's memories after childbirth so they forget the hours and hours of pain and actually want to have sex again.

Seriously, though, I really thought the packet would be easier to construct this time around. Afterall, I've now been on two job search committees. I've seen more job packets than I care to think about. I know exactly how much emphasis gets put on the CV versus everything else. I need a cover letter that explains why I fit their job and highlights my productivity in case they happen to start with the cover letter before the CV. It just has to not suck. I know this. But I spent three agonizing hours on the damn cover letter last night.

After a sleepless night, I know that the struggle actually had little to do with the cover letter itself. Part of it did....I had built up in my head that now that I was an assistant professor, I really needed a letter that sounded like one and I had no idea how to do that. But most of the struggle had to do with self-doubt. Was I really good enough to apply to some of these schools? Should I just be happy with having a job? Was I doing the right thing by hitting the market now in this time of economic crisis? Was I insane not to try and make a move right now, because only God knows if there will even be open jobs next year. What if I moved and that university collapsed under economic strains? (I imagine a lot of schools are watching horrible things happen to their endowments right about now). What if I don't get any interviews? What does that say about my quality as a scientist?

I'm better now....mostly. It can be so easy to get trapped in your own brain running frantically in circles after questions with no answers. The truth of the matter is, nothing is lost by hitting the market and potentially so much is gained. It may be a gamble, but when the worst case scenario for a gamble is that nothing changes, you only lose by not trying. And for those of you who are wondering about my cover letter...it's all good. It doesn't suck, but my CV rocks.